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Two Important Launches: Amazon MatchBook and Oyster

Two pieces of major exciting news for the book industry was announced this month!

First, Amazon is launching a new program called MatchBook in October 2013. The program will allow you to also get the ebook edition of any participating printed book you purchase through Amazon (past or future), for $2.99 or less (or even for free!).

This is incredibly important for a couple of reasons:

Consumers that want to convert their library to digital format can do it now

This increases sales numbers for an industry that has been suffering

It actually supports printed book sales. Consumers may opt to just purchase the hardback since they know they can grab the ebook version as well (especially if it’s free!)

Not to be overshadowed, a new mobile reading platform called Oyster is launching the beta version of their iPhone app and has received lots of hype! Oyster has been dubbed “The Netflix for Books”, and for $9.95 a month you get unlimited access to over 100,000 titles from various participating publishers.

If this receives early success (as I expect it will), more and more publishers will flock to them and offer to add their books to their content library. This could be a game changer for the book industry, and will certainly keep it alive. You can read more about this start up venture here.

I’m calling it right now: This needs to be a strategic acquisition by Barnes & Noble if they expect to stay afloat and compete against Amazon.
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